04-01-2026 23:36 via slashdot.org

Fleischer Studios Criticized for Claiming Betty Boop is Not Public Domain

Here it is — Betty Boop's first appearance, which became public domain on Thursday. It's a 60-second song halfway through a longer cartoon about a restaurant titled Dizzy Dishes. (The first scene makes it clear this is a restaurant of anthropomorphized animals — which explains why the as-yet-unnamed character has floppy dog ears...)So Fleischer Studios has now warned that claiming Betty Boop is public domain"is actually not true."Very often, different versions of a character that hav
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